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MEREDITH KERCHER MURDER

AMANDA KNOX

‘I want my case reviewed’: Rudy Guede

Rudy Guede, the man who was found guilty of British student Meredith Kercher’s murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison, has called for his case to be reviewed after Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were cleared of the killing at the end of March.

'I want my case reviewed': Rudy Guede
Rudy Guede (C) was jailed for the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2008. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Guede, 29, is almost half-way through a 16-year jail term, but in a judgement that had serious implications for Knox and Sollecito, the judge in his trial ruled that he could not have acted alone.

In an interview with La Repubblica at the prison in Viterbo, Guede said: “If Knox and Sollecito are innocent, then so am I.”

Italy’s Court of Cassation quashed a murder conviction against Knox and Sollecito on March 27th, bringing a sensational end to an eight-year-legal drama.

Guede described himself as an “impossible convict” and the “accomplice of a crime without a culprit”.

Along with his lawyers, he said is is now waiting for the high court to gives its justification for the recent ruling.

“I want to arrive at a situation where my case will be reviewed,” he told La Repubblica.

“I am convinced we will find new elements to swing the verdict.”

Knox and Sollecito served four years in prison for the murder before being acquitted in 2011.

But that decision was found to be flawed by the Court of Cassation in 2013, leading to a retrial in Florence which reinstated the initial convictions last year and increased Knox's sentence to 28 years and six months.

Kercher, 21, died after being stabbed 47 times and having her throat slashed. Her half-naked body was found in a pool of blood in a back room of the house she shared with Knox on November 2nd 2007

By Anna Pujol-Mazzini

AMANDA KNOX

‘I am afraid’: Amanda Knox breaks down at Italy forum

Amanda Knox told an Italian legal forum Saturday she feared "harassment" and "new accusations" four years after she was acquitted of the gruesome killing of her British housemate.

'I am afraid': Amanda Knox breaks down at Italy forum
Acquitted murder suspect Amanda Knox broke down at the "Trial by Media" session at the Criminal Justice Festival in the northern city of Modena. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP
Knox, from Seattle, spent four years behind bars after the half-naked body of fellow exchange student Meredith Kercher was found on November 2, 2007 in a bedroom of the apartment they shared in the central Italian city of Perugia.
   
Now, the 31-year-old is controversially back in Italy for a discussion panel entitled “Trial by Media” at the Criminal Justice Festival in the northern city of Modena.
   
“To tell the truth I am afraid, afraid of being harassed, insulted, afraid of being trapped and new accusations being directed at me,” Knox said.
 
“I have come back because it was something I had to do — there was a time when I felt at home in this beautiful country and I hope one day to recapture this feeling,” Knox, speaking in Italian, told the forum, her voice often close to breaking.
 
Amanda Knox said that her return to Italy was 'something I had to do'. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP
 
'Many think I am wicked'
 
“I know that, despite my acquittal, I remain a controversial figure in the face of public opinion, especially here in Italy. I know many people think I am wicked,” said the American.
   
“Some have even suggested that by being here I am once again traumatising the Kercher family and profaning Meredith's memory,” she went on. “They are wrong,” she insisted.
   
“The fact I continue to be held responsible for the Kerchers' pain shows how powerful false narratives can be and how they can undermine justice, especially when reinforced and amplified by the media,” said Knox.
   
The conference has been organised by a group of Modena lawyers and the Italy Innocence Project, which focuses “on the issues related to wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice”.
   
“The Italy Innocence Project didn't yet exist when I was wrongly convicted in Perugia,” Knox tweeted in May.
 
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From the outset, her case sparked lurid headlines in Britain and Knox's hometown of Seattle, Washington.
 
Prosecutors described the murder as a drug-fuelled sex game gone awry involving Knox, her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and an Ivorian drifter, Rudy Guede.
   
Sollecito was acquitted alongside Knox, but Guede was convicted in a separate “fast track” trial and is serving a 16-year jail term in Italy.
   
Defence lawyers argued their clients could not get a fair trial because of the media frenzy over the murder, with lurid headlines seizing on the young US student's nickname “Foxy Knoxy”.
   
Knox left Italy after she was acquitted on appeal in 2011.
   
In an essay published online on Wednesday, she recalled fleeing the country “in a high-speed chase, paparazzi literally ramming the back of my stepdad's rental car”.
   
Knox's sentence was raised to 28 years in prison when her conviction was upheld in 2014, though both she and Sollecito were finally acquitted by Italy's top court the following year and she returned home to work as a journalist and commentator.
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